The Vanguard, 1926 | Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Enoch Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) left school as a teenager and moved from his Staffordshire home to London in his early twenties. After first working as a legal clerk, he soon pursued a literary career. Though he is best known for his novels, Bennett edited the weekly periodical Woman from 1893 to 1900 and also published reviews and other nonfiction works. He later lived in Bedfordshire (1900-1902), Paris (1902-1912), and Essex (1912-1921), and assisted with English propaganda efforts during the latter stages of World War I. Bennett and his first wife, Marie Marguerite Soulie, married in 1907 but separated in 1921; following their separation, Bennett returned to London to live with actress Dorothy Cheston (1891-1977). Bennett and Cheston had one daughter, Virginia (b. 1926). Bennett's novel The Vanguard was published in 1927.

These two volumes (330 pages) contain a manuscript draft of Arnold Bennett's novel The Vanguard. The first volume (pages 1-177) was written between March 27 and May 14, 1926, and the second volume (pages 178-330) was written between May 15 and July 8, 1926. Both volumes include corrections in the author's hand, as well as notes indicating the author's location as he composed the novel.